Sea Of Poppies [PART-1]

Yes, malik. Kalua slung Deeti across his shoulder and carried her down the ladder, leaving their bundles on deck. After he had laid her on a mat, he would have gone back to fetch the bundles, but Deeti would not let him: No, listen to me first: do you know who that man was? He’s Bhyro Singh, my husband’s uncle; it’s he who arranged my marriage, and it’s he who sent people out to look for us. If he knows we’re here ... * ‘Are you ready, ho?’ The pilot’s call was answered promptly by Serang Ali: Sab taiyár, sáhib. The sun was at its zenith now, and the booby-hatch that led to the dabusa had long since been battened down. Along with every other lascar, Jodu had been set to work on clearing the main deck – stowing pipas of drinking water, tirkaoing hamars, and hauling zanjirs through the hansil-holes. Now, with the chickens and goats safely stowed in the ship’s boats, nothing else remained to be cleared and Jodu was impatient to be up on the trikat-yard again, for it was from aloft that he envisioned himself taking a last look at his native city: his were the first hands on the iskat when at last the command came – ‘Foretopmen aloft!’ – Trikatwalé úpar chal! From Calcutta to Diamond Harbour, some twenty miles to the south, the Ibis was to be towed by the Forbes, one of several steamtugs that had recently been put into commission on the Hooghly River. Jodu had seen these diminutive boats from afar, puffing consequentially along the river, towing mighty barques and brigantines as if they weighed no more than his own frail dinghy: not the least part of his eagerness to be under way lay in the prospect of a tow from one of these amazing vessels. Looking upriver, he saw that the round-nosed tug was already approaching, tolling its bell to clear a path through the traffic on the river. On the far bank lay the Botanical Gardens and Jodu’s perch was high enough that he could see the familiar trees and pathways. The sight made him think, for one fleeting and wistful instant, of what it would have been like to have Putli balancing on the trikat-yard beside him: that it would be sport, there was no denying, and she

could have done it too, had it been possible. Of course, such a thing could not be permitted under any circumstances – but still, he couldn’t help wishing that he had parted from her on some better, less contentious note: there was no telling when, if ever, he would see her again. His attention had strayed so far that he was taken by surprise when Sunker said: Look, over there . . . The heads of a pair of divers could be seen bobbing around the anchor buoys as they loosed the schooner’s cables. It was almost time now: in a matter of moments they would be pulling away. Mamdoo-tindal tossed back his hair, and closed his long-lashed eyes. Then his lips began to move in prayer, murmuring the first words of the Fatiha. Jodu and Sunker were quick to join in: B’ism’illáh ar-rahmán ar-rahím, hamdu’l’illáh al-rabb al-‘alamín ... In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Praise to the Lord of all Creation . . . * ‘All hands to quarters, ahoy!’ The pilot’s shout was followed by a cry from the serang: Sab ádmi apna jagah! As the tug drew closer, the hammering of its engine grew louder and louder, and in the enclosed, airless gloom of the dabusa, it sounded as if some enraged demon were trying to rip apart the wooden planks of the hull in order to devour the people who sat huddled within. It was very dark inside, for the maistries had extinguished the candles and lamps on their way out: there was no need for them, they’d said, now that the migrants were all nicely packed in – to keep them burning would only increase the risk of fire. No one had disputed this but everyone understood that the overseers were merely saving themselves an extra expense. With no flame lit and the hatch secured, such light as there was came from cracks in the timber and the openings of the piss-dales. The leaden gloom, combined with the midday heat and the fetid stench of hundreds of enclosed bodies, gave the unstirred air a weight like that of sewage: it took an effort even to draw breath. Already now, the girmitiyas had moved their mats about to their liking: everyone knew, from the first, that the maistries cared very

little about what actually happened below: their chief concern was to escape the heat and stench of the dabusa so that they could settle into their own bunks, in the midships-cabin. No sooner had the overseers departed, shutting the hatch behind them, than the migrants began to disrupt the careful circle of their mats, scuffling and shouting as they fought for space. As the noise of the tugboat mounted, Munia began to tremble, and Paulette, guessing that she was on the verge of hysteria, drew her closer. Despite her pretence of self-possession, even Paulette was beginning to feel the onset of panic when she heard a voice she knew to be Zachary’s: he was right above her, on the main deck, so close that she could almost hear the shuffle of his feet. ‘Pay out the cable!’ – Hamár tirkao! ‘Haul together!’ – Lag sab barábar! The hawsers that connected the Ibis to the steam-tug drew tight and a tremor ran through the schooner as if she were waking suddenly to life, like a bird startled out of a long night’s sleep. From below the waterline, the spasms ran upwards, through the dabusa and into the deckhouse, where Steward Pinto crossed himself and dropped to his knees. As his lips began to move, the mess-boys, in all their many faiths, knelt beside him and bowed their heads: Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum . . . Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . . * On the main deck, Mr Doughty’s hands were on the wheel as he shouted: ‘Heave, you dogs, heave!’ Habés – habés kutté, habés! habés! The schooner lurched to its jamna side and down in the darkness of the dabusa, people slipped and slid and tumbled upon each other like crumbs on a tilted tray. Neel put his eye to the air duct, and saw that a riot had broken out in the adjacent dabusa, with dozens of terrified migrants hurling themselves at the ladder, pounding on the fastened hatch, in a belated attempt at escape: Chhoro, chhoro – let us out, let us off... There was no response from above, except for a series of hookums, ringing across the deck: ‘Haul you bastards! Haul!’ – Sab

barábar! Habés salé, habés! Exasperated by the futile thrashings of the girmitiyas, Neel shouted through the air duct: Be quiet you fools! There’s no escape; no turning back . . . Slowly, as the vessel’s motion made itself felt in the pit of every stomach, the noise yielded to a pregnant, fearful stillness. Now the migrants began to absorb the finality of what was under way: yes, they were moving, they were afloat, heading towards the void of the Black Water; neither death nor birth was as fearsome a passage as this, neither being experienced in full consciousness. Slowly, the rioters backed away from the ladder and returned to their mats. Somewhere in the darkness, a voice, trembling in awe, uttered the first syllables of the Gayatri Mantra – and Neel, who had been made to learn the words almost as soon as he could speak, now found himself saying them, as if for the first time: Om, bhur bhuvah swah, tat savitur varenyam . . . O giver of life, remover of pain and sorrow . .. * ‘Ready about!’ – Taiyár jagáh jagáh! Up on the foremast, as the shudder of the Ibis’s awakening ran from a-low to aloft, Jodu felt a tremor in the trikat-yard and knew that he had arrived at the moment his life had been building towards through many a long year; now, at last, he was leaving behind these muddy shores to meet the waters that led to Basra and Chin-kalan, Martaban and Zinjibar. As the mast began to sway, his chest swelled with pride to see how fine a figure the Ibis cut amongst the craft that clogged the river – the caramoussals and perikoes and budgerows. At this lofty elevation, it seemed as if the schooner had given him a pair of wings to soar above his past. Giddy with exhilaration, he hooked an arm around the shrouds and tore off his headcloth. My salams to all of you, he shouted, waving to the unheeding shore: Jodu is on his way . . . oh you whores of Watgunge . . . you crimps of Bhutghat . . . Jodu’s turned a lascar and he is gone . . . Gone!

Seventeen Twilight brought the Ibis back to the Narrows, at Hooghly Point, and there, in the river’s broad curve, she dropped anchor to wait out the night. Not till darkness had swallowed the surrounding banks were the girmitiyas allowed on deck; until then the gratings of the hatchway were kept firmly closed. The subedar and the overseers were agreed that the migrants’ first taste of shipboard conditions had probably increased the likelihood of attempted break-outs: seen in daylight, the shore might present an irresistible temptation. Even after nightfall, when the attractions of land had been diminished by the howls of foraging jackal-packs, the maistries did not relax their vigilance: past experience had taught them that in every group of indentured migrants there were always a few who were desperate – or suicidal – enough to throw themselves into the water. When it came time to prepare the evening meal, they kept every migrant under watch. Even those who had been designated to serve as bhandaris were kept under guard while they stirred the chattas in the deckhouse chuldan. As for the rest, they were allowed up only in small groups, and were herded back into the dabusa as soon as they had finished their rice, dal and lime-pickle. While the bhandaris and maistries were seeing to the feeding of the migrants, Steward Pinto and his mess-boys were serving roast lamb, mint sauce and boiled potatoes in the officers’ cuddy. The portions were generous, for the steward had laid in two whole sides of fresh mutton before leaving Calcutta, and the meat was not likely

to last long in the unseasonable heat. But in spite of the plenitude of food and drink, there was less conviviality in the cuddy than there was around the chuldan, where, from time to time, the migrants could even be heard singing a few snatches of song. Májha dhára mé hai bera merá Kripá kará ásrai hai tera My raft’s adrift in the current Your mercy is my only refuge . . . ‘Damned coolies,’ muttered the Captain, through a mouthful of lamb. ‘Bloody Doomsday couldn’t put a stop to their caterwauling.’ * A ship could take as long as three days, depending on the weather and the winds, to sail downriver from Calcutta to the Bay of Bengal. Between the river’s estuary and the open sea lay the island of Ganga-Sagar, the last of the holy waterway’s many pilgrimages. One of Neel’s ancestors had endowed a temple on the island, and he had visited it several times himself. The erstwhile Halder zemindary lay about halfway between Calcutta and Ganga-Sagar, and Neel knew that the Ibis would pass his estate towards the end of the second day. This was a journey that he had made so often that he could feel the zemindary’s approach in the river’s bends and turns. As it drew near, his head filled with shards of recollection, some of them as bright and sharp as bits of broken glass. When the time came, almost as if to mock him, he heard the lookout cry out, above: Raskhali, we’re passing Raskhali! He could see it now: it couldn’t have been clearer if the schooner’s hull had turned into glass. There it was: the palace and its colonnaded verandas; the terrace where he had taught Raj Rattan to fly kites; the avenue of palash trees his father had planted; the window of the bedroom to which he had taken Elokeshi. ‘What is it, eh?’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Why you hitting your head, eh?’ When Neel made no answer, Ah Fatt shook him by the shoulders till his teeth rattled. ‘The place we pass now – you know it, not know it?’

‘I know it.’ ‘Your village, eh?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Home? Family? Tell everything.’ Neel shook his head: ‘No. Maybe some other time.’ ‘Achha. Other time.’ Raskhali was so close that Neel could almost hear the bells of its temple. What he needed now, was to be elsewhere, in a place where he could be free of his memories. ‘Where’s your home, Ah Fatt? Tell me about it. Is it in a village?’ ‘Not village.’ Ah Fatt scratched his chin.‘My home very big place: Guangzhou. English call Canton.’ ‘Tell me. Tell me everything.’ Hou-hou . . . Thus it happened that while the Ibis was still on the Hooghly, Neel was being transported across the continent, to Canton – and it was this other journey, more vivid than his own, that kept his sanity intact through the first part of the voyage: no one but Ah Fatt, no one he had ever known, could have provided him with the escape he needed, into a realm that was wholly unfamiliar, utterly unlike his own. It was not because of Ah Fatt’s fluency that Neel’s vision of Canton became so vivid as to make it real: in fact, the opposite was true, for the genius of Ah Fatt’s descriptions lay in their elisions, so that to listen to him was a venture of collaboration, in which the things that were spoken of came gradually to be transformed into artefacts of a shared imagining. So did Neel come to accept that Canton was to his own city as Calcutta was to the villages around it – a place of fearful splendour and unbearable squalor, as generous with its pleasures as it was unforgiving in the imposition of hardship. In listening and prompting, Neel began to feel that he could almost see with Ah Fatt’s eyes: there it was, the city that had conceived and nurtured this new half of himself – a seaport that lay far inland, in the recesses of a nook-shotten coast, separated from the ocean by an intricate tangle of swamps, sands, creeks, marshes and inlets. It was shaped like a ship, this river port, its hull outlined by a continuous bulwark of towering, grey walls. Between the water and the city’s

walls lay a shoulder of land that was as turbulent as a ship’s wake: although it fell outside the city limits, this stretch of shore was so thickly settled that nobody could tell where the land stopped and the water began. Sampans, junks, lorchas and smugboats were moored here in such numbers as to form a wide, floating shelf that reached almost halfway across the river’s width: everything was jumbled, water and mud, boats and godowns – but the confusion was deceptive, for even in this teeming, bustling length of silt and water, there were distinct little communities and neighbourhoods. And of these, the strangest, without a doubt, was the small enclave allotted to the foreigners who came to trade with China: the extra-Celestials who were known to the Cantonese as Fanquis – Aliens. It was on this spit of land, just beyond the south-western gates of the walled city, that the Aliens had been permitted to build a row of so-called factories, which were nothing but narrow, red-tiled buildings, part warehouse, part residence and part accounts office for the shroffing of cash. For the few months of the year during which they were allowed to reside at Canton, the Aliens had perforce to confine their devilry to this one narrow enclave. The precincts of the walled city were forbidden to them, as to all foreigners – or so at least the authorities declared, claiming that such had been the case for almost a hundred years. Yet anyone who had been inside could tell you that of certain kinds of Alien there was no lack within the city walls: why, you had only to walk past the Hao-Lin temple, on the Chang-shou Road, to see monks from dark, westerly places; and if you stepped inside the precincts, you could even see a statue of the Buddhist preacher who had founded the temple: nobody could dispute that this proselyte was as foreign as the Sakyamuni himself. Or else, if you ventured still further into the city, walking up the Guang-li Road to the Huai-shang temple, you would know at once, from the shape of the minaret, that this was not, despite the outward resemblance, a temple at all, but a mosque; you would see too that the people who lived in and around this edifice were not all Uighurs, from the western reaches of the Empire, but included, besides, a rich display of devilry – Javanese, Malays, Malayalis and Black-Hat Arabs.

Why, then, were some Aliens allowed in and some kept out? Was it the case that only a certain kind of Alien was truly an extra- Celestial being, to be kept under careful confinement, in the enclave of the factories? So it had to be, for the Fanquis of the factories were undeniably of a certain cast of face and character: there were ‘Redfaced’ Aliens from England, ‘Flowery-flag’ Aliens from America, and a good sprinkling of others, from France, Holland, Denmark and so on. But of these many kinds of creature, the most easily recognizable, without a doubt, was the small but flourishing tribe of Whitehatted Aliens – Parsis from Bombay. How was it that the White-hatted ones came to be counted as Fanquis, of the same breed as the Red-faces and Flowery-flags? No one knew, since a matter of appearance it surely could not be – for while it was true that some of the white- hatted faces were no less florid than those of the Flowery-flags, it was true also that there were many among them who were as dark as any of the lascars who sat imp-like upon the mastheads of the Pearl River. As for their clothes, the Whitehats’ garments were in no whit the same as those of the Fanquis: they wore robes and turbans, not unlike those of Black-hatted Arabs, presenting an aspect utterly unlike that of the other factory-dwellers – whose wont it was to strut about in absurdly tight leggings and jerkins, their pockets stuffed with the kerchiefs in which they liked to store their snot. No less was it plain for all to see that the other Fanquis looked somewhat askance upon the White-hats, for they were often excluded from the councils and revelries of the rest, just as their factory was the smallest and narrowest. But they too were merchants, after all, and profits were their business, for the sake of which they seemed perfectly willing to live the Fanqui life, migrating like birds between their homes in Bombay, their summer chummeries in Macao, and their cold-weather quarters in Canton, where the vistas of the walled city were not the least of the pleasures forbidden them – for while in China, they had to live, as did the other Fanquis, not just without women, but in the strictest celibacy. On no measure did the city’s authorities so firmly insist as on the chop, issued annually, that forbade the people of Guangzhou to provide the Aliens with ‘women or boys’. But could such an edict really be enforced? As in so many things, what was

said and what transpired were by no means the same. It was impossible, surely, for those self-same authorities to be unaware of the women on the flower-boats that trolled the Pearl River, importuning lascars, merchants, linkisters, shroffs and whoever else was of a mind for some diversion; impossible, equally, that they should not know that in the very centre of the Fanqui enclave there lay a filth-clogged mews called Hog Lane, which boasted of any number of shebeens serving not just shamshoo, hocksaw and other liberty-liquors, but all manner of intoxicants of which the embrace of women was not the least. The authorities were certainly aware that the Dan boatpeople, who manned many of the sampans and lanteas and chopboats of the Pearl River, also performed many small but essential services for the Fanquis, including taking in their washing – of which there was always a great deal, not just by way of clothing, but also of bed- and table-linen (the latter particularly, since food and drink did not fall within the purview of the luxuries denied to the poor devils). Such being the case, the business of laundering could not be transacted without frequent visits and outcalls – which was how it happened that a young White-hat of devilish charm, Bahramji Naurozji Moddie, came to cross paths with a fresh-faced Dan girl, Lei Chi Mei. It began as a prosaic matter of handing over tablecloths soaked in Sunday dhansak, and napkins wetted with kid-nu-gosht, all of which young Barry – as he was known among the Fanquis – had to enter and account for in a laundry-book, this duty being assigned to him by right of his status as the junior-most of the White-hatted tribe. And it was nothing other than a white hat that led to the pair’s first coupling – or rather, it was one of those long spools of cloth which held the headgear in place: for it so happened that one of the great seths of the factory, Jamshedji Sohrabji Nusserwanji Batliwala, discovered a rent in his turban cloth one day and subjected young Barry to such a dumbcowing that when it came time to display the sundered object to Chi Mei, the young man burst into tears, weeping so artfully that the turban wound itself around and around the couple till they were sealed inside a snug cocoon. A few years of loving and laundering were still to pass before a child was born to Chi Mei, but when at last the infant made his

appearance, the event inspired a great fever of optimism in his father, who bestowed upon him the impressive name of Framjee Pestonjee Moddie, in the hope that it would ease his acceptance into the world of the White-hats. But Chi Mei, who knew far better the probable fate of children who were neither Dan nor Fanqui, took the precaution of naming the boy Leong Fatt. * The maistries quickly let it be known that the female migrants would be expected to perform certain menial duties for the officers, guards and overseers. Washing their clothes was one such; sewing buttons, repairing torn seams and so on, was another. Eager for exercise of any sort, Paulette elected to share the washing with Heeru and Ratna, while Deeti, Champa and Sarju opted to do the sewing. Munia, on the other hand, managed to snag the only job on board that could be considered remotely glamorous: this was the task of looking after the livestock, which was housed in the ship’s boats and consumed almost exclusively by the officers, guards and overseers. The Ibis was equipped with six boats: two small, clinker-built jollyboats, two mid-size cutters, and two carvel-built longboats, each a full twenty feet in length. The jollyboats and cutters were stowed on the roof of the deckhouse, one of each kind being nested in the other, with the whole ensemble held in place by chocks. The longboats, on the other hand, were amidships, swung up on davits. The longboats’ crane-like davits were known to the lascars as ‘devis’, and not without reason, for their ropes and guys intersected with the mainshrouds in such a way as to create small niches of semiconcealment, as might be found in the sheltering lap of a goddess: in these recesses it was not impossible for one or two people to elude the unceasing bustle of the main deck for several minutes at a time. The scuppers, where the washing was done, lay under the devis, and Paulette quickly learnt to take her time over the task, so she could linger in the open air. The Ibis was now deep in the watery labyrinth of the Sundarbans, and she was glad to seize every opportunity to gaze at the river’s mangrove-cloaked shores. The waterways here were strewn with mudbanks and other hazards, so the navigable channel followed a twisting, looping course,

occasionally drawing close enough to the banks to provide clear views of the jungle. Some of Paulette’s happiest memories were of helping her father catalogue the flora of this forest, during weeks- long collecting trips in Jodu’s boat: now, as she watched the banks through the screen of her ghungta, her eyes sifted through the greenery as if by habit: there, beneath the upthrust elbow-roots of a mangrove, was a little shrub of wild basil, Ocimum adscendens; it was Mr Voight, the Danish curator of the Gardens at Serampore – and her father’s best friend – who had confirmed that this plant was indeed to be found in these forests. And here, growing thick along the banks, was Ceriops roxburgiana, identified by the horrible Mr Roxburgh, who’d been so unkind to her father that the very sound of his name would make him blanch; and there, on the grassy verge, just visible above the mangroves, was a spiky-leafed shrub she knew all too well: Acanthus lambertii. It was at her own insistence that her father had given it this name – because she had literally stumbled upon it, having been poked in the leg by one of its spiny leaves. Now, watching the familiar foliage slip by, Paulette’s eyes filled with tears: these were more than plants to her, they were the companions of her earliest childhood and their shoots seemed almost to be her own, plunged deep into this soil; no matter where she went or for how long, she knew that nothing would ever tie her to a place as did these childhood roots. For Munia, on the other hand, the forest was a place of dread. One afternoon, as Paulette was gazing at the mangroves, under the pretence of scrubbing clothes, Munia appeared beside her and uttered a horrified gasp. Clutching at Paulette’s arm, she pointed to a sinuous form, hanging from the branch of a mangrove. Is that a snake? she whispered. Paulette laughed. No, you ullu; it’s just a creeping plant that grows on the bark. Its flowers are very beautiful . . . It was, in fact, an epiphytic orchid; she’d first encountered this species three years ago when Jodu brought one back home. Her father had taken it for Dendrobium pierardii at first, but on examination had decided that it wasn’t. What would you like to call it? he had asked Jodu with a smile, and Jodu had glanced at

Paulette before replying, with a sly grin: Call it Putli-phool. She knew he was teasing, that it was his way of making fun of her for being so thin, flat-chested and weedy. But her father was much taken by the idea, and sure enough the epiphyte became Dendrobium pauletii. Munia shuddered: I’m glad I’m not down here. It’s much nicer where I work, on the roof of the deckhouse. The lascars pass right by when they’re climbing up to fix the sails. Do they ever say anything? Paulette asked. Only him. Munia glanced over her shoulder at the trikat-yard, where Jodu could be seen standing on the footropes, at full stretch, reefing the foretopsail. Look at him! Always showing off. But he’s a sweet boy, no denying that, and nice-looking too. The terms of their siblingship being what they were, Paulette had given little thought to Jodu’s appearance: now, as she looked up at his boyishly mobile face, his upturned lips, and the coppery glint in his raven’s-wing hair, she could see why Munia might be attracted to him. Vaguely embarrassed by this, she said: What did you talk about? Munia giggled: He’s like a fox, that one: made up a story about how a hakim in Basra had taught him to tell people’s fortunes. How? I said, and do you know what his answer was? What? He said: let me put my ear on your heart, and I’ll tell you what the future holds. Better still, if I can use my lips. That Jodu might have a strong amatory streak had never occurred to Paulette: she was shocked to hear of his boldness. But Munia! weren’t there people around? No, it was dark; no one could see us. And did you let him? said Paulette. Listen to your heart? What do you think? Paulette slipped her head under Munia’s ghungta, so she could look into her eyes. No! Munia, you didn’t! Oh Pugli! Munia gave a teasing laugh and pulled her ghungta away. You may be a devi, but I’m a shaitan. Suddenly, over Munia’s shoulder, Paulette saw Zachary stepping down from the quarter-deck. He seemed to be heading forward, on a course that would take him right past the devis. As he approached,

Paulette’s limbs tensed involuntarily and she pulled away from Munia to flatten herself against the bulwark. As it happened, she had one of his shirts in her hands, and she tucked it quickly out of sight. Surprised by Paulette’s fidgeting, Munia said: What’s the matter? Although Paulette’s face was buried in her knees, and her ghungta was drawn almost to her ankles, Munia had no difficulty in following the direction of her gaze. Just as Zachary was walking past, she gave a hiccup of laughter. Munia, be quiet, Paulette hissed. That’s no way to behave. For who? said Munia, tittering in delight. Look at you, acting the devi. But you’re no different from me. I saw who you had your eye on. He’s got two arms and a flute just like any other man. * Right from the start, it was made clear to the convicts that their days would be spent largely in picking and rolling istup – or oakum, as Neel insisted on calling it, giving the fibre its English name. At the start of each day, a large basket of the stuff was brought to them, and they were expected to turn it into usable pickings by nightfall. They were told also that, unlike the migrants, they would not be allowed on deck at mealtimes: their food would be sent to them below, in taporis. But once each day, they would be released from the chokey and given time to empty their shared toilet bucket and to wash their bodies with a few mugfuls of water. Afterwards, they would be taken above and given a few minutes’ exercise, consisting, usually, of a turn or two around the main deck. This last part of the convicts’ routine, Bhyro Singh was quick to appropriate: the pretence that they were a pair of plough-oxen and he a farmer, tilling a field, seemed to give him endless delight; he would loop their chains around their necks, in such a way that they were forced to stoop as they walked; then, shaking their fetters like reins, he would make a clicking, tongue-rolling noise as he drove them along, occasionally slicing at their legs with his lathi. It wasn’t just that the infliction of pain gave him pleasure (though this was no small part of it): the blows and insults were also intended to show everyone that he, Bhyro Singh, was uncontaminated by the degraded creatures who had been placed in his power. Neel had

only to look into his eyes to know that the disgust that he and Ah Fatt inspired in the subedar far surpassed anything he might have felt for more commonplace criminals. Thugs and dacoits, he would probably have regarded as kindred spirits and treated with some respect, but Neel and Ah Fatt did not fit that mould of man: for him they were misbegotten, befouled creatures – one because he was a filthy foreigner and the other because he was a fallen outcaste. And even worse, if possible, was the fact that the two convicts appeared to be friends and that neither seemed to want to overmaster the other: to Bhyro Singh this was a sign that they were not men at all, but castrated, impotent creatures – oxen, in other words. While driving them around the deck, he would shout, for the amusement of the maistries and silahdars: . . . Ahó, keep going . . . don’t weep for your balls now . . . tears won’t bring them back. Or else he would rap them on the genitals and laugh when they doubled up: What’s the matter? Aren’t you hijras, you two? There’s no pleasure or pain between your legs. In order to turn the convicts against each other, the subedar would sometimes give one an extra helping of food, or make the other take a double turn at cleaning the toilet buckets: Come, let’s see if you have a taste for your sweetheart’s dung. In the failure of these stratagems, he evidently perceived a subtle undermining of his own position, for if ever he saw Neel and Ah Fatt coming to each other’s assistance on deck, he would vent his anger with furious lashings of his lathi. What with the swaying of the schooner, the unsteadiness of their legs, and the weight of their fetters, it was difficult for Ah Fatt and Neel to take more than a few steps at a time without falling or faltering. Any attempt by either to help the other would result in kicks and swipes of the lathi. It was in the midst of one such flurry of blows that Neel heard the subedar say: Sala, get up. The Chhota Malum’s heading this way: on your feet now – don’t dirty his shoes. Neel was struggling to his feet when he found himself looking into a face that he remembered well. Before he could stop himself, he said aloud: ‘Good afternoon, Mr Reid.’ That a convict should have the spleen to address an officer was so incredible to Bhyro Singh that he slammed his lathi on Neel’s

shoulder, knocking him to his knees: B’henchod! You dare look the sahib in the eye? ‘Wait!’ Zachary stepped forward to stop the subedar’s hand. ‘Wait a minute there.’ The mate’s intervention so inflamed the subedar that for a moment he glowered as if he were about to hit Zachary next. But then, thinking the better of it, he stepped back. In the meanwhile, Neel had risen to his feet and was dusting his hands.‘Thank you, Mr Reid,’ he said. Then, unable to think of anything else, he added: ‘I trust you are well?’ Zachary peered into his face, frowning. ‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘I know the voice, but I confess I can’t place . . .’ ‘My name is Neel Rattan Halder. You may remember, Mr Reid, that you dined with me some six months ago, on – on what was then – my budgerow.’ This was the first time in many months that Neel had spoken to anyone on the outside, and the experience was so strangely exhilarating that he could almost have imagined himself back in his own sheeshmahal. ‘You were served, if my memory does not fail me, some duck soup and a roast of Sudden-Death. Forgive me for mentioning these details. Food has been much on my mind of late.’ ‘Gollation!’ cried Zachary suddenly, in astonished recognition. ‘You’re the Roger, aren’t you? The Raja of . . . ?’ ‘Your memory does not mislead you, sir,’ said Neel, bowing his head. ‘Yes, I was indeed once the Raja of Raskhali. My circumstances are very different now, as you can see.’ ‘I had no idea you were aboard this vessel.’ ‘No more was I aware of your presence on board,’ said Neel, with an ironic smile. ‘Or I would certainly have tried to send up my card. I had imagined somehow that you had already returned to your estates.’ ‘My estates?’ ‘Yes. Did you not say you were related to Lord Baltimore? Or am I imagining it?’ Neel was amazed by how easy it was, and how strangely pleasurable, to fall back into the snobberies and small talk of his past life. Those gratifications had seemed insignificant when

they were freely available, but now it was as if they were life’s very essence. Zachary smiled. ‘I think you may be misremembering. I’m no lordling and possess no estates.’ ‘In that at least,’ said Neel,‘our lot is shared. My present zemindary consists of no more than a toilet bucket and a set of rusty chains.’ Zachary made a wondering gesture as he looked Neel over, from his tattooed head to his unshod feet: ‘But what happened to you?’ ‘It is a tale that cannot be briefly told, Mr Reid,’ said Neel.‘Suffice it to say that my estate has passed into the possession of your master, Mr Burnham: it was awarded to him by a decision of the Supreme Court of Judicature.’ Zachary whistled in surprise: ‘I’m sorry . . .’ ‘I am but another of Fortune’s fools, Mr Reid.’ Now, with a guilty start, Neel remembered Ah Fatt, standing mutely beside him. ‘Forgive me, Mr Reid. I have not introduced my friend and colleague, Mr Framjee Pestonjee Moddie.’ ‘How do you do?’ Zachary was about to stick out his hand when the subedar, provoked beyond endurance, shoved his lathi into the small of Ah Fatt’s back: Chal! Hatt! Move on, you two. ‘It was a pleasure to see you again, Mr Reid,’ said Neel, wincing under the subedar’s blows. ‘For me too . . .’ As it turned out, the encounter produced nothing to be glad of, either for Zachary or the convicts. For Neel it earned a slap across the face from the subedar: You think you can impress me with two words of angrezi? I’ll show you how this ingi-lis is spoken . . . For Zachary, it earned a summons from Mr Crowle: ‘What’s this I hear about you jawin with the quoddies?’ ‘I’d met one of them before,’ said Zachary. ‘What was I to do? Pretend he doesn’t exist?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Mr Crowle. ‘Pretend he don’t exist. ‘S not yer place to be talkin with the quoddies and coolies. Subby-dar don like it. He don’t like you too much neither, to be honest. There’ll be trouble if ‘n you try it agin. Warnin you I am, Mannikin.’ *

The encounter between Zachary and the convicts had another witness – one on whom it produced a more momentous effect than on anyone else. This was Baboo Nob Kissin Pander, who had woken that morning to a powerful and prophetic rumbling in his bowels. As was his wont, he had paid close attention to these symptoms and had been led to conclude that the spasms were too forceful to be ascribed entirely to the motion of the schooner: they seemed more akin to the tremors that betoken the coming of a great earthquake or upheaval. With the progress of the day, this sense of foreboding and expectation had grown steadily stronger, driving the gomusta finally to make his way agil, to the fo’c’sle-deck, where he positioned himself between the bows, allowing the wind to fill out his loose- flowing robes. As he peered ahead, at the silvery waters of the ever- broadening river, the mounting suspense made his stomach go pit-a- pat and he was forced to cross his legs, to hold back the threatened eruption. It was in the process of squirming and twisting that he caught sight of the two convicts being marched around the deck by Subedar Bhyro Singh. The countenance of the former Raja was not unknown to Baboo Nob Kissin: he had glimpsed it several times, in Calcutta, through the window of the Raskhali phaeton. Once, when the carriage was thundering past, the gomusta had lost his footing and toppled backwards in fright: he remembered well the smile of disdainful amusement with which Neel had regarded him, as he wallowed haplessly in a pool of mud. But the pale, refined countenance of his memory, with its rosebud mouth and world-weary eyes, bore no resemblance to the gaunt, swarthy face that he saw before him now. Had Baboo Nob Kissin not known that the disgraced Raja was one of the two convicts on the Ibis, he would not have imagined this to be the same man, so striking was the change, not just in his appearance but also in his demeanour, which was just as alert and watchful now as it had been bored and languid then. It was somehow thrilling to imagine that he, Baboo Nob Kissin Pander, had played a part in humbling this proud and arrogant aristocrat, in subjecting this effete, self-indulgent sensualist to privations that he could not have envisioned in his worst nightmares. In a way it was

like midwiving the birth of a new existence – and no sooner had this thought crossed his mind than the gomusta experienced the upwelling of a sensation that was so intense and so unfamiliar that he knew that Taramony had to be its source. What other provenance could there be for the tumult of pity and protectiveness that seized him at the sight of Neel’s begrimed face and chained extremities? Who else could be responsible for the upsurge of maternal tenderness in his bosom, as he watched the convict being driven around the deck like a draught animal? He had always harboured the suspicion that the great regret of Taramony’s life was that she had no child of her own. This was confirmed now by the welter of emotions emanating from the presence inside him, the instinct that made him yearn to wrap his arms around the convict to shield him from pain: it was as if Taramony had recognized, in Neel, the son, now grown, whom she had been unable to bear for her husband, Baboo Nob Kissin’s uncle. So powerful indeed were the gomusta’s maternal stirrings that had not the fear of an embarrassing accident compelled him to keep his legs knotted, he might well have gone racing down the deck to interpose himself between Neel and the subedar’s flailing lathi. And could it be a coincidence that it was exactly then that Zachary stepped forward to stop the subedar’s hand and anoint the convict with his recognition? It was as if two aspects of Taramony’s capacity for womanly love had been brought into conjunction: that of the mother, longing to nurture a wayward son, and that of the seeker, yearning to transcend the things of this world. The sight of the encounter between these two beings, both of whom concealed inner truths known only to him, was so moving as to actually set in motion the long-threatened earthquake: the gurgling in the gomusta’s interior was now like that of molten lava, and even the fear of embarrassment could not prevent him from racing aft, in search of the heads. * During the day, when the schooner’s movement could be felt in the pit of every stomach, the heat and stench of the dabusa were made bearable only by the knowledge that every moment of it brought the

end of the voyage a little closer. But there was no such consolation when the schooner anchored at night in the bends of the jungle: with tigers roaring and leopards coughing nearby, even the least excitable of the migrants were seized by wild imaginings. Nor was there any lack of people to stoke rumours and set people against each other. The worst of these was Jhugroo, who had been bundled out of his own village because of his propensity for making trouble: his face was as ugly as his disposition, with a jutting, twisted lower jaw, and tiny bloodshot eyes, yet his tongue and his wits were quick enough to earn him a certain kind of authority among the younger and more credulous girmitiyas. On the first night, when no one could sleep, Jhugroo began to tell a story about the jungles of Mareech and how the younger and weaker migrants were destined to be used as bait for the wild animals that lived in those forests. His voice could be heard through the whole dabusa, and it terrorized the women, especially Munia, who broke down in tears. In the suffocating heat, her fear had the virulence of a fever and soon infected those around her: as the women collapsed, one after another, Paulette realized that she would have to act quickly if she was to stem their panic. Khamosh! Quiet! she cried out. Listen to me, listen: what this man is telling you is all bakwás and nonsense. Don’t believe these stories – they aren’t true. There are no wild animals in Mareech, except for birds and frogs and a few goats, pigs and deer – most of them brought there by human beings. As for snakes, there’s not one on the whole island. No snakes! This pronouncement was so remarkable that the crying stopped and many heads, including Jhugroo’s, turned to stare at Paulette. It fell to Deeti to ask the question that was foremost in every mind: No snakes? Can there really be such a jungle? Yes, there are such jungles, said Paulette. Mainly on islands. Jhugroo would not let this pass unchallenged. How would you know? he demanded. You’re just a woman: who can take your word for it? Paulette answered calmly: I know because I’ve read it in a book. It was written by a man who knew about such things and had lived a

long time in Mareech. A book? Jhugroo gave a satirical laugh. The bitch is lying. How would a woman know what’s written in a book? This stung Deeti, who retorted: Why shouldn’t she be able to read a book? She’s the daughter of a pandit – she’s been taught her letters by her father. Lying rundees, Jhugroo cried. You should clean your mouths with dung. What? Kalua rose slowly to his feet, stooping low to keep his head clear of the ceiling. What was that you said to my wife? Confronted with Kalua’s massive frame, Jhugroo retreated into a sulky, vengeful silence, while his followers edged away to join those who had gathered around Paulette: Is it true? There are no snakes there? What trees do they have? Is there rice? Really? * On the other side of the bulwark, Neel too was listening intently to Paulette. Although he had spent a fair amount of time peering at the migrants, through the air duct, he had not paid her much attention till then: like the other women, she was always ghungta’d, and he had not set eyes on her face, nor indeed on any other part of her, apart from her henna-darkened hands and altareddened feet. From the intonations of her voice, he had surmised that she differed from the other migrants in that her language was Bengali rather than Bhojpuri, and it had struck him once that her head was sometimes inclined in such a way as to listen in on his conversations with Ah Fatt – but this seemed absurd. It was impossible surely, that a coolie-woman would understand English? It was Deeti who brought Neel’s attention to bear on Paulette anew: if what she’d said was true – that this female was educated – then it seemed to Neel that he would almost certainly know her parents or relatives: small indeed was the number of Bengali families who encouraged their daughters to read, and few among them were unrelated to his own. The names of the handful of Calcutta women who could claim any kind of punditry were well known in his circle, and there was not, to his knowledge, one among them who would publicly admit to knowing English – that was a threshold that even

the most liberal families had yet to cross. And here was another puzzle: the educated women of the city were almost all from wellto- do families; it was inconceivable that any of them would allow a daughter of theirs to sail off with a boatload of indentured labourers and convicts. Yet here, apparently, was one such: or was she? Only when the general interest in the girl had waned did Neel put his lips to the air duct. Then, addressing her ghungta-draped head, he said, in Bengali: One who has been so courteous in dealing with her interlocutors will have no objection, surely, to answering yet another query? The silky phrasing and refined accent put Paulette instantly on her guard: although her back was turned towards the chokey, she knew exactly who had spoken and she understood immediately that she was being put to some kind of test. Paulette was well aware that her Bengali tended to have a raffish, riverfront edge to it, much of it having been acquired from Jodu; she was careful now in choosing her words. Matching her tone to the convict’s, she said: There is no harm in a question; should the answer be known it will certainly be provided. The accent was neutral enough to deny Neel any further clues to the speaker’s origins. Would it be possible then, he continued, to inquire after the title of the book that was referred to earlier: this volume that is said to have contained such a rich trove of information about the island of Mareech? Paulette, playing for time, said: The name eludes me – it is of no consequence. But indeed it is, said Neel. I have searched my memory for a book in our language that might contain these facts and I can think of none. There are many books in the world, parried Paulette, and surely no one can know all their names? Not of all the books in the world, Neel conceded, that is certainly true. But in Bengali the number of books in print is yet to exceed a few hundred, and I once prided myself on possessing every single one of them. Thus my concern – is it possible that I had missed a volume?

Thinking quickly, Paulette said: But the book of which I speak has yet to see print. It is a translation from the French. From the French! Indeed? And would it be too much to ask the name of the translator? Paulette, thoroughly rattled, uttered the first name to come to mind, which was that of the munshi who had taught her Sanskrit and helped her father with the cataloguing of his collection: His name was Collynaut-baboo. Neel recognized the name at once: Really? Do you mean Munshi Collynaut Burrell? Yes, that is he. But I know him well, said Neel. He was my uncle’s munshi for many years. I can assure you he speaks not a syllable of French. Of course not, said Paulette, parrying quickly. He was collaborating with a Frenchman – Lambert-sahib of the Botanical Gardens. Since I was Collynaut-baboo’s pupil, he sometimes gave me pages to transcribe. That is how I read them. Not a word of this was convincing to Neel, but he could think of no way to shake the story. May I presume to ask, he said at last, what the good-name of the lady’s family might be? Paulette was ready with her riposte. Would it not be intolerably forward, she answered politely, to speak of so intimate a matter upon such a brief acquaintance? As you please, said Neel. I will say no more except that you are wasting your time in trying to educate these oafs and bumpkins. They might as well be left to rot in ignorance, since rot they surely will. All this while, Paulette had been sitting so that she would not have to look at the convict. But now, nettled by the arrogance of his tone, she turned her ghungta-covered face in his direction and allowed her eyes to travel slowly up to the air duct. All she could see, in the dimness of the dabusa, was a pair of eyes, glowing crazily in the depths of a stubbled face. Her anger turned to a kind of pity and she said, softly: If you are so clever, then what are you doing here with us? If there was to be a panic or a riot in here, do you think your learning would save you? Haven’t you ever heard of the saying: we’re all in the same boat? – amra shob-i ek naukoye bháshchhi?

Neel burst into laughter. Yes, he said, triumphantly: I have heard it said – but never in Bengali. It’s an English saying that you’ve just translated – very prettily, if I may say so – but it begs the question of where and how you learnt the English language. Paulette turned away without answering, but he persisted: Who are you, my good lady? You may as well tell me. You can be sure I’ll find out. I’m not of your kind, said Paulette. That is all you need to know. Yes, indeed it is, he said, in a tone of mockery – for in uttering her final retort, Paulette’s tongue had betrayed just enough of the waterfront’s sibilance for the mystery to be solved. Neel had heard Elokeshi speak of a new class of prostitute who had learnt English from their white clients – no doubt this was one such, on her way to join some island brothel. * The space which Deeti and Kalua had chosen for themselves lay under one of the massive beams that arched over the ‘tween deck. Deeti’s mat was pushed right up to the side, so that the hull provided a backrest when she sat up. But when she lay down, the wooden ridge was no more than an arm’s length from her head, so that a moment’s inattention could mean a nasty blow to the head. After cracking her brow against the edge a few times, she learnt to slip out safely, and after that, she quickly came to be grateful for the shelter of the beam: it was like a parental arm, holding her in place when everything else was becoming more and more unsteady. Never was Deeti more grateful for the beam’s proximity than during the first days of the voyage, when she was still unaccustomed to the vessel’s motion: it gave her something to hold on to, and she found that she could lessen the whirling sensation in her head by focusing her eyes on the wood. In this way, despite the half-light of the dabusa, she became intimately familiar with that length of timber, learning to recognize its grain, its whorls and even the little scratches that had been carved into its surface by the nails of others who had lain where she lay. When Kalua told her that the best remedy for queasiness was to look up at the open sky, she told him tartly to look where he pleased, but for herself, she had all the sky she could deal

with in the wood above her head. For Deeti, the stars and constellations of the night sky had always recalled the faces and likenesses of the people she remembered, in love or in dread. Was it this, or was it the shelter afforded by the arched limb that reminded her of the shrine she had left behind? It happened anyway that on the morning of the third day she dipped the tip of her index finger into the vermilion-filled parting of her hair and raised it to the wood to draw a tiny face with two pigtails. Kalua understood at once: It’s Kabutri, isn’t it? he whispered – and Deeti had to jab him in the ribs, to remind him that her daughter’s existence was a secret. Later that day, at noon, when the migrants were making their way out of the dabusa, a strange affliction took hold of everyone who climbed up the ladder: when they set foot on the last rung, they became immobile and had to be shoved up bodily by those who were following at their heels. No matter how loud or impatient the voices below, everyone was stricken in turn as they stepped on the main deck, even those who had but a moment before been cursing the clumsy clodhoppers who were weighing down the line. When it was her turn to emerge from the hatch, Deeti too was seized by the malady: for there it was, dead ahead of the schooner’s bows, the Black Water. The wind had fallen off, so there was not a fleck of white visible on the surface, and with the afternoon sun glaring down, the water was as dark and still as the cloak of shadows that covers the opening of an abyss. Like the others around her, Deeti stared in stupefaction: it was impossible to think of this as water at all – for water surely needed a boundary, a rim, a shore, to give it shape and hold it in place? This was a firmament, like the night sky, holding the vessel aloft as if it were a planet or a star. When she was back on her mat, Deeti’s hand rose of itself and drew the figure she had drawn for Kabutri, many months ago – of a winged vessel flying over the water. Thus it happened that the Ibis became the second figure to enter Deeti’s seaborne shrine.

Eighteen At sundown, the Ibis cast anchor at the last place from which the migrants would be able to view their native shore: this was Saugor Roads, a much-trafficked anchorage in the lee of Ganga-Sagar, the island that stands between the sea and the holy river. Except for some mudbanks and the pennants of a few temples, there was little to be seen of the island from the Ibis, and none of it was visible in the unlit gloom of the dabusa: yet the very name Ganga-Sagar, joining, as it did, river and sea, clear and dark, known and hidden, served to remind the migrants of the yawning chasm ahead; it was as if they were sitting balanced on the edge of a precipice, and the island were an outstretched limb of sacred Jambudvipa, their homeland, reaching out to keep them from tumbling into the void. The maistries too were jitterily aware of the proximity of this last spit of land, and that evening they were even more vigilant than usual when the migrants came on deck for their meal; lathis in hand, they positioned themselves warily around the bulwarks and any migrant who looked too closely at the distant lights was hustled quickly below: What’re you staring at, sala? Get back down there, where you belong . . . But even when removed from view, the island could not be put out of mind: although none of them had set eyes on it before, it was still intimately familiar to most – was it not, after all, the spot where the Ganga rested her feet? Like many other parts of Jambudvipa, it was a place they had visited and revisited time and again, through the

epics and Puranas, through myth, song and legend. The knowledge that this was the last they would see of their homeland, created an atmosphere of truculence and uncertainty in which no provocation seemed too slight for a quarrel. Once fights broke out, they escalated at a pace that was bewildering to everyone, including the participants: in their villages they would have had relatives, friends, and neighbours to step between them, but here there were no elders to settle disputes, and no tribes of kinsfolk to hold a man back from going for another’s throat. Instead, there were trouble-makers like Jhugroo, always eager to set one man against another, friend against friend, caste against caste. Among the women, the talk was of the past, and the little things that they would never see, nor hear, nor smell again: the colour of poppies, spilling across the fields like ábír on a rain-drenched Holi; the haunting smell of cooking-fires drifting across the river, bearing news of a wedding in a distant village; the sunset sounds of temple bells and the evening azan; late nights in the courtyard, listening to the tales of the elderly. No matter how hard the times at home may have been, in the ashes of every past there were a few cinders of memory that glowed with warmth – and now, those embers of recollection took on a new life, in the light of which their presence here, in the belly of a ship that was about to be cast into an abyss, seemed incomprehensible, a thing that could not be explained except as a lapse from sanity. Deeti fell silent as the other women spoke, for the recollections of the others served only to remind her of Kabutri and the memories from which she would be forever excluded: the years of growing she would not see; the secrets she would never share; the bridegroom she would not receive. How was it possible that she would not be present at her child’s wedding to sing the laments that mothers sang when the palanquins came to carry their daughters away? Talwa jharáilé Kãwal kumhláile Hansé royé Birahá biyog

The pond is dry The lotus withered The swan weeps For its absent love In the escalating din, Deeti’s song was almost inaudible at first, but when the other women grew aware of it they joined their voices to hers, one by one, all except Paulette, who held back shyly, until Deeti whispered: It doesn’t matter whether you know the words. Sing anyway – or the night will be unbearable. Slowly, as the women’s voices grew in strength and confidence, the men forgot their quarrels: at home too, during village weddings, it was always the women who sang when the bride was torn from her parents’ embrace – it was as if they were acknowledging, through their silence, that they, as men, had no words to describe the pain of the child who is exiled from home. Kaisé katé ab Birahá ki ratiyã? How will it pass This night of parting? * Through the opening of the air duct, Neel too was listening to the women’s songs, and neither then nor afterwards was he able to explain why it happened that the language he had been surrounded by for the last two days, now poured suddenly into his head, like flood water cascading over a breached bund. It was either Deeti’s voice, or some fragment of her songs, that made him remember that hers was the language, Bhojpuri, in which Parimal had been accustomed to speak to him, in his infancy and childhood – until the day when his father put a stop to it. The fortunes of the Halders were built, the old Raja had said, on their ability to communicate with those who held the reins of power; Parimal’s rustic tongue was the speech of those who bore the yoke, and Neel ought never to use it again for it would ruin his accent when it came time for him to learn

Hindusthani and Persian, as was necessary for the heir to a zemindary. Neel, ever the obedient son, had allowed the language to wither in his head, yet, unbeknownst to him, it had been kept alive – and it was only now, in listening to Deeti’s songs, that he recognized that the secret source of its nourishment was music: he had always had a great love of dadras, chaitis, barahmasas, horis, kajris – songs such as Deeti was singing. Listening to her now, he knew why Bhojpuri was the language of this music: because of all the tongues spoken between the Ganges and the Indus, there was none that was its equal in the expression of the nuances of love, longing and separation – of the plight of those who leave and those who stay at home. How had it happened that when choosing the men and women who were to be torn from this subjugated plain, the hand of destiny had strayed so far inland, away from the busy coastlines, to alight on the people who were, of all, the most stubbornly rooted in the silt of the Ganga, in a soil that had to be sown with suffering to yield its crop of story and song? It was as if fate had thrust its fist through the living flesh of the land in order to tear away a piece of its stricken heart. * The urge to use his remembered words was strong upon Neel that night and he could not sleep. Much later, after the women had sung themselves hoarse, and a fitful quiet had descended upon the dabusa, he heard a few of the migrants trying to recall the story of Ganga-Sagar Island. He could not keep himself from telling the tale: speaking through the air duct, he reminded his listeners that if not for this island neither the Ganga nor the sea would exist; for according to the myths, it was here that Lord Vishnu, in his avatar as the sage Kapila, was sitting in meditation, when he was disturbed by the sixty thousand sons of King Sagar who were marching through the land to claim it for the Ikshvaku dynasty. It was here too, exactly where they were now, that those sixty thousand princes were punished for their impudence, being incinerated by a single glance from one of the sage’s burning eyes; it was here that their unhallowed ashes had lain

until another scion of their dynasty, the good king Bhagiratha, was able to persuade the Ganga to pour down from the heavens and fill the seas: this was how the ashes of the sixty thousand Ikshvaku princes were redeemed from the underworld. The listeners were dumbfounded – not by the tale so much as by Neel himself. Who would have thought that this filthy qaidi would show himself to be possessed of so much telling and so many tongues? To think that he could even speak an approximation of their own Bhojpuri! Why, if a crow had begun to sing a kajri they could not have been more amazed. Deeti too was awake and listening, but she found little assurance in the story. I’ll be glad when we’re gone from this place, she whispered to Kalua. There’s nothing worse than to sit here and feel the land pulling us back. * At dawn, with much greater regret than he had anticipated, Zachary said goodbye to Mr Doughty, who was now headed back to shore with his team. Once the pilot was gone it remained only to refresh a few supplies before weighing anchor and standing out to sea. The re-provisioning was quickly done, for the schooner was soon beseiged by a flotilla of bumboats: cabbage-carrying coracles, fruit- laden dhonies, and machhwas that were filled with goats, chickens and ducks. In this floating bazar there was everything a ship or a lascar might need: canvas by the gudge, spare jugboolaks and zambooras, coils of istingis and rup-yan, stacks of seetulpatty mats, tobacco by the batti, rolls of neem-twigs for the teeth, martabans of isabgol for constipation, and jars of columbo-root for dysentery: one ungainly gordower even had a choola going with a halwai frying up fresh jalebis. With so many vendors to set against each other, it took Steward Pinto and the mess-boys very little time to acquire everything that was needed by way of provisions. By noon the schooner’s anchors were a-trip and the trikat-wale were ready to haul on her hanjes – but the wind, which had been faltering all morning, chose just this time, or so the tindals said, to trap the vessel in a kalmariya. With her rigging taut, and her crew set to make sail, the Ibis lay becalmed in a looking-glass sea. At every

change of watch, a man was sent aloft with instructions to sound the alert if any breath of wind should be felt to stir. But hour after hour went by, and the serang’s shouted queries –Hawá? – met with nothing but denial: Kuchho nahi. Sitting in the full glare of the sun, without a breeze to cool her, the schooner’s hull trapped the heat so that down below, in the dabusa, it was as if the migrants’ flesh were melting on their bones. To let in some air, the maistries removed the wooden hatch, leaving only the grating in place. But it was so still outside that scarcely a breath of air trickled through: instead, the perforations of the iron screen allowed the stench of the hold to rise slowly into the sky, summoning kites, vultures and sea-mews. Some circled lazily above, as if waiting for carrion, while others settled on the yards and shrouds, screeching like witches and peppering the decks with their droppings. The rules for the rationing of drinking water were still new and unfamiliar to the girmitiyas: the system had not been put to any kind of test before, and now, as it began to break down, the patterns of order that had ruled the dabusa thus far broke down with it. By early afternoon, the day’s allowance of drinking water had dwindled to a point where men were fighting for possession of those gharas that still contained a few sips. Egged on by Jhugroo, some half-dozen migrants climbed the ladder and began to beat on the gratings of the hatch: Water! Listen, up there! Our gharas need to be filled. When the maistries came to remove the gratings there was a near riot: dozens of men scrambled up the ladder in a desperate effort to force their way out on deck. But the hatch was only wide enough for a single man to pass through at a time and every head that was thrust out of it presented an easy target to the maistries. Their lathis came crashing down on the girmitiyas’ skulls and shoulders, knocking them back inside, one after another. Within minutes both the grating and the hatch were slammed shut again. Haramzadas! – the voice belonged to Bhyro Singh – I swear I’m going to straighten you out; you’re the unruliest mob of coolies I’ve ever seen . . . The disturbance, however, was not entirely unexpected, for it was rare for a contingent of girmitiyas to adapt themselves to the

shipboard regimen without some resistance. The overseers had dealt with this kind of trouble before and knew exactly what to do: they shouted through the gratings to let the girmitiyas know that the Kaptan had ordered them to muster on the main deck; they were to come up the ladder in orderly fashion, one by one. The maistries directed the women to come out of the hold first, but some of them were in such a bad way that they couldn’t climb the ladder and had to be carried up. Paulette was the last woman to leave the hold and she did not realize how unsteady she was till she stepped on deck. Her knees shook, as if about to buckle, and she had to hold on to the deck rail to keep her balance. A pipa of fresh water had been placed in the shade of the deckhouse and a mess-boy was dipping into it to pour a couple of ladlefuls into each woman’s lota. The jamna longboat was hanging a few steps aft of it and Paulette saw that several women had taken shelter beneath it, some squatting on their haunches and some lying prostrate: she pulled herself along the rails and squatted beside them, in the last remaining patch of shade. Like the others, Paulette drank deeply from her vessel before pouring the last trickle of moisture on her head, allowing it to seep slowly down the sweat- drenched ghungta that was draped over her face. With the water percolating through her parched innards, she began to feel the first tremors of life returning, not just to her body but also to her mind, which seemed to wake to consciousness after having lain long- dormant beneath her thirst. Till this moment, defiance and determination had made Paulette wilfully blind to the possible privations of the voyage: she had told herself that she was younger and stronger than many of the others and had nothing to fear. But it was clear now that the weeks ahead would be hard beyond anything she had imagined; it was even possible that she would not live to see the journey’s end. As the awareness of this took hold of her, she turned to look over her shoulder, at Ganga-Sagar Island, and found herself almost unconsciously trying to gauge the distance. Then Bhyro Singh’s voice rang out, signalling the completion of the muster: Sab házir hai! All present!

Turning aft, Paulette saw that Captain Chillingworth had appeared on the quarter-deck and was standing like a statue behind its balustrade of fife-rails. On the main deck, a ring of lascars, maistries and silahdars had been posted around the schooner’s bulwarks to keep watch over the assembled girmitiyas. Facing the assembly, lathi in hand, Bhyro Singh shouted: Khamosh! Silence! The Kaptan is going to speak and you will listen; the first to make a sound will feel my lathi on his head. Up on the quarter-deck, the Captain was still motionless, with his hands clasped behind his back, calmly surveying the crowd on the deck. Although a light breeze had begun to blow now, it had little or no cooling effect, for the air seemed only to grow hotter under the Captain’s gaze: when at last he spoke, his voice carried to the bows with the crackle of a leaping flame: ‘Listen carefully to what I say, for none of it will be said again.’ The Captain paused to allow Baboo Nob Kissin to translate, and then, for the first time since he had appeared on the quarter-deck, his right hand came into view and was seen to be holding a tightly coiled whip. Without turning his head, he gestured towards Ganga- Sagar Island, pointing with the weapon’s tip. . . . In that direction lies the coast from which you came. In the other lies the sea, known to you as the Black Water. You may think that the difference between the one and the other can be seen clearly with the naked eye. But that is not so. The greatest and most important difference between land and sea is not visible to the eye. It is this – and note it well . . . Now, as Baboo Nob Kissin was translating, the Captain leant forward and put his whip and his white-knuckled hands on the fife- rails. . . . The difference is that the laws of the land have no hold on the water. At sea there is another law, and you should know that on this vessel I am its sole maker. While you are on the Ibis and while she is at sea, I am your fate, your providence, your lawgiver. This chabuk you see in my hands is just one of the keepers of my law. But it is not the only one – there is another . . . Here, the Captain held up his whip and curled the lash around the handle to form a noose.

. . . This is the other keeper of the law, and do not doubt for a moment that I will use it without hesitation if it should prove necessary. But remember, always, there is no better keeper of the law than submission and obedience. In that respect, this ship is no different from your own homes and villages. While you are on her, you must obey Subedar Bhyro Singh as you would your own zemindars, and as he obeys me. It is he who knows your ways and traditions, and while we are at sea he will be your mái-báp, just as I am his. You should know that it is because of his intercession that no one is being punished today; he has pleaded for mercy on your behalf, since you are new to this ship and her rules. But you should know also that the next time there is any disorder on board, the consequences will be severe, and they will be visited upon everyone who plays a part in it; anyone who thinks to make trouble should know that this is what awaits them . . . Now the lash of the whip coiled out to make a crack that split the overheated air like a bolt of lightning. Despite the heat of the sun the Captain’s words had chilled Paulette to the marrow. As she looked around her now, she could see that many of the girmitiyas were in a trance of fear: it was as if they had just woken to the realization that they were not only leaving home and braving the Black Water – they were entering a state of existence in which their waking hours would be ruled by the noose and the whip. She could see their eyes straying to the island nearby; it was so close that its attraction was almost irresistible. When a grizzled, middle-aged man began to babble, she knew by instinct that he was losing his struggle against the pull of land. Although forewarned, she was still among the first to scream when this man made a sudden turn, shoved a lascar aside, and vaulted over the deck rail. The silahdars raised the alarm by shouting – Admi girah! Man overboard! – and the girimitiyas – most of whom had no idea what was happening – began to mill about in panic. Under cover of the commotion, two more migrants broke through and made the leap, hurling themselves over the bulwark. This sent the guards into a frenzy and they started to flail their lathis in an effort to herd the men back into the dabusa. To add to the

confusion, the lascars were busy ripping the covers off the jamna longboat; when they tilted it sideways a flock of squawking hens and roosters descended upon the deck. The malums too had converged upon the boat, shouting hookums and pulling at the devis, raising clouds of chicken-muck that plastered them in feathers, shit and feed. Temporarily forgotten, the women were left to huddle around the jamna devis. Craning over the deck rail, Paulette saw that one of the three swimmers had already disappeared below water; the other two were thrashing against a current that was sweeping them towards the open sea. Then a great flock of birds appeared above the swimmers, swooping down from time to time, as if to check whether they were still alive. Within a few minutes the swimmers’ heads vanished, but still the birds remained, wheeling patiently above, as they waited for the corpses to float back to the surface. Although the bodies were not seen again, it was clear, from the way the birds were circling in the sky, that the corpses had been seized by the outgoing tide and were being swept towards the horizon. This was why, when at last the long-awaited wind began to blow, the crew was exceptionally slow in making sail: because, after everything that had happened already, the prospect of crossing wakes with the three mutilated corpses had filled the lascars with an unspeakable dread.

Nineteen Next morning, under a lamb’s-wool sky, the Ibis ran into swells and gusts that set her to a frolicsome pitching. Many of the girmitiyas had begun to experience stirrings of discomfort while the Ibis was still on the Hooghly, for even at her most placid the schooner was a great deal livelier than the slow river-boats to which they were accustomed. Now, with the Ibis tipping all nines in a jabble-sea, many were reduced to a state of infantile helplessness. Some half-dozen pails and wooden buckets had been distributed through the ‘tween-deck, in preparation for the onset of seasickness. For a while, these were put to good use, with the steadier of the migrants helping the others to reach the balties before they spewed. But soon the containers were filled to overflowing, and their contents began to slop over the sides. As the vessel plunged and climbed, more and more of the migrants lost the use of their legs, emptying their stomachs where they lay. The smell of vomit added to the already noxious odours of the enclosed space, multiplying the effects of the vessel’s motion. Soon it seemed as if the hold would be swamped by a rising tide of nausea. One night a man drowned in a pool of his own vomit, and such were the conditions that his death went unremarked for the better part of a day. By the time it was noticed, so few migrants could stand upright that the consigning of the corpse to the water was not witnessed by any of them. Deeti, like many of the others, was oblivious to the fatality that had occurred nearby: even if she had known, she would not have had the

strength to look in the dead man’s direction. For several days she could not rise to her feet, far less leave the dabusa; it was a near- intolerable effort even to roll off her mat when Kalua wanted to wipe it clean. As for food and water, the very thought of them were enough to bring her gorge rushing to her lips: Ham nahin tál sakelan – I can’t bear it, I can’t . . . Yes you can; you will. As Deeti began to recover, Sarju grew steadily worse. One night her moaning became so piteous that Deeti, who was feeling none too spry herself, took her head into her own lap, and covered her forehead with a piece of moistened cloth. Suddenly she felt Sarju’s body growing tense under her fingers. Sarju? she cried: Are you all right? Yes, whispered Sarju. Hold still for a moment . . . Alerted by Deeti’s cry, some of the others turned to ask: What’s happened to her? What’s the matter? Sarju raised a wavering finger to silence them, and then lowered her ear to Deeti’s belly. The women held their breath until Sarju opened her eyes. What? said Deeti. What’s happened? God has filled your lap, Sarju whispered. You are with child! * The one time when Captain Chillingworth was unfailingly present on deck was at noon, when he was joined by the two mates in shooting the sun. This was the part of the day that Zachary most looked forward to, and not even Mr Crowle’s presence could diminish his pleasure in the ritual. It wasn’t just that he enjoyed using his sextant, though that was no small part of it; for him this moment was a reward for the unceasing tedium of watch-on-watch and the constant aggravation of having to be at close quarters with the first mate: to see the schooner changing position on the charts was a reminder that this was not a journey without end. Every day, when Captain Chillingworth produced the schooner’s chronometer, Zachary would go to great pains to synchronize his watch with it: the moving of the minute hand was evidence, too, that despite the unchanging horizon

ahead, the schooner was steadily altering her place in the universe of time and space. Mr Crowle did not possess a watch, and it irked him that Zachary had one. Every noon there was some new jibe: ‘There he goes again, like a monkey with a nut . . .’ Captain Chillingworth, on the other hand, was impressed by Zachary’s exactitude: ‘Always good to know where you stand in the world: never does a man any harm to know his place.’ One day, as Zachary was tweaking his watch, the Captain said: ‘That’s a pretty little gewgaw you’ve got there, Reid: would you mind if I took a look?’ ‘No, sir – not in the least.’ Zachary snapped the cover shut and handed over his watch. The Captain’s eyebrows rose as he examined the filigreed designs. ‘Fine little piece, Reid; Chinese craftsmanship I should think: probably made in Macao.’ ‘Do they make watches there?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said the Captain. ‘Some very good ones too.’ He flipped the lid open, and his eye went immediately to the lettering on the inside cover. ‘What’s this now?’ He read the name out loud – Adam T. Danby – and repeated it, as if in disbelief: ‘Adam Danby?’ He turned to Zachary with a frown. ‘May I ask how this came into your possession, Reid?’ ‘Why, sir . . .’ Had they been alone, Zachary would have had no hesitation in telling the Captain that Serang Ali had given him the watch: but with Mr Crowle within earshot, Zachary could not bring himself to hand over a fresh load of ammunition to be added to the first mate’s armoury of jibes. ‘Why, sir,’ he said, with a shrug, ‘I got it at a pawnshop, in Cape Town.’ ‘Did you now?’ said the Captain. ‘Well, that’s very interesting. Very interesting indeed.’ ‘Really, sir? How so?’ The Captain looked up at the sun and mopped his face. ‘The tale’s a bit of a breezo and will take some telling,’ he said. ‘Let’s go below where we can sit down.’

Leaving the deck to the first mate, Zachary and the Captain went down to the cuddy and seated themselves at the table. ‘Did you know this Adam Danby, sir?’ said Zachary. ‘No,’ said the Captain. ‘Never met him in person. But there was a time when he was well known in these parts. Long before your day, of course.’ ‘Who was he, sir, if I might ask?’ ‘Danby?’ the Captain gave Zachary a half-smile. ‘Why he was none other than “the White Ladrone”.’ ‘ “Ladrone”, sir . . . ?’ ‘Ladrones are the pirates of the South China Sea, Reid; named after a group of islands off the Bocca Tigris. Not much left of them now, but there was a time when they were the most fearsome band of cutthroats on the high seas. When I was a younker they were skippered by a man called Cheng-I – savage brute he was too. Up and down the coast he’d go, as far as Cochin-China, pillaging villages, taking captives, putting people to the sword. Had a wife too – a bit of bobtail from a Canton fancy-house. Madame Cheng we used to call her. But the woman wasn’t enough for Mr Cheng- I. Captured a young fisherman on one of his raids and made a mate of him too! Enough to put Madame Cheng’s nose out of joint, you’d think? Not a bit of it. When old Cheng-I died, she actually married her rival! Two of them set themselves up as the King and Queen of the Ladrones!’ The Captain shook his head slowly, as if at the memory of an ancient and long-lingering bemusement. ‘You might think this pair would be strung up by their own crew, wouldn’t you? But no: in China nothing is ever as you expect; just when you think you’ve made sense of them, they’ll send you up Tom Cox’s traverse.’ ‘How do you mean, sir?’ ‘Well just think of it: not only were Madame Cheng and her rival- turned-husband accepted as the cutthroats’ leaders – they went on to build themselves a pirate empire. Ten thousand junks under their command at one time, with over a hundred thousand men! Caused so much trouble the Emperor had to send an army against her. Her fleet was broken up and she surrendered, with her husband.’ ‘And what became of them?’ said Zachary.

The Captain gave a snort of laughter. ‘You’d think they’d get the hempen habeas, wouldn’t you? But no – that would be too straight a course for the Celestials. They put a mandarin’s hat on the boy’s head and as for Madame Cheng, she was let off with an earwigging and a fine. Still at large in Canton. Runs a snuggery, I’m told.’ ‘And Danby, sir?’ said Zachary. ‘Was he mixed up with Madame Cheng and her crew?’ ‘No,’ said the Captain. ‘She’d been beached by the time he came into these waters. Her followers, or what was left of them, had broken up into small bands. You wouldn’t know their junks from any other country boat – little floating kampungs they were, with pigs and chickens, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Had their women and children with them too. Some of their junks were really no better than the usual Canton flower-boat, part gambling-den and part knockingshop. They’d hide in the coves and inlets, raiding coastal vessels and preying on shipwrecks. That’s how Danby fell into their hands.’ ‘Shipwrecked was he, sir?’ ‘That’s right,’ said the Captain, scratching his chin. ‘Let me see: when did the Lady Duncannon run aground? Must have been ’12or ’13– about twenty-five years ago I’d say. Foundered off Hainan Island. Most of her crew managed to get back to Macao. But one of the ship’s boats was lost, with some ten or fifteen hands, Danby among them. What happened to the others I can’t say, but this much is for sure, that Danby ended up with a band of Ladrones.’ ‘Did they capture him?’ ‘Either that, or found him washed ashore. Probably the latter, if you think about the course he took afterwards.’ ‘Which was . . . ?’ ‘Turned into a catspaw for the Ladrones.’ ‘A catspaw, sir?’ ‘Yes,’ said the Captain. ‘Went native, did Danby. Married one of their women. Togged himself up in sheets and dishcloths. Learnt the lingo. Ate snakes with sticks. The lot. Can’t blame him in a way. He was just a joskin of a cabin-boy, from Shoreditch or some other London rookery. Packed off to sea as soon as he could walk. No easy thing to be a drudge, you know. Pulley-hauley all day and

fighting off the old cadgers allnight. Not much to eat but lobscouse and old horse; Gunner’s Daughter the only woman in sight. Between the bawdybaskets and the food, a Ladrone junk must have been a taste of paradise. Shouldn’t think it took too much for them to bring him sharp about – probably had him horizontalized under a staff- climber as soon as he was strong enough to stand. But he was no pawk, Danby, had a good head on him. Invented a devilish clever bit of flummery. He’d get togged out in his best go-ashores and hie off to some port like Manila or Anjer. The Ladrones would slip in after him and they’d pick a vessel that was short-handed. Danby’d sign on as a mate, and the Ladrones as lascars. No one’d suspect a thing, of course. White man playing catskin for a kippage of Long-tails? Last thought to enter any shipmaster’s head. And Danby was a fine old glib-gabbet too. Bought himself the best clothes and gewgaws to be found in the East. Wouldn’t show his hand till the vessel was safe out at sea – and then suddenly there they were, flying their colours, boarding her in the smoke. Danby would disarm the officers and the Ladrones would deal with the rest. They’d pack their captives into the ship’s boats and cut them adrift. Then away they’d go, galing off with their prize. It was the most fiendishly clever ruse. Their luck ran out somewhere off Java Head as I remember. Intercepted by an English ship-o’-the-line while trying to sail off with a prize. Danby was killed, along with most of the gang. But a few of the Ladrones got away. I imagine it was one of them who pawned this watch of yours.’ ‘Do you really think so, sir?’ ‘Why yes, of course,’ said the Captain. ‘Do you think you might remember where you got it?’ Zachary began to stutter. ‘I think . . . I think I might, sir.’ ‘Well,’ said the Captain, ‘when we get to Port Louis, you must be sure to take your tale to the authorities.’ ‘Really, sir? Why?’ ‘Oh I should think they’d be very interested in tracing your watch to its last owner.’ Chewing his lip, Zachary looked at the watch again, remembering the moment when the serang had handed it to him. ‘And if they caught the last owner, sir?’ he said. ‘What do you think they’d do?’

‘Oh they’d have a lot of questions for him I don’t doubt,’ said the Captain. ‘And if there was any hint of a connection with Danby I’m sure they’d hang him. Not the least doubt about it: there’s a nubbing- chit waiting for any member of the Danby gang who’s still on the prowl.’ * After a few days the majority of the migrants began to recover from their seasickness. Yet, even as the others were getting better, a few showed no signs of improvement at all, and some grew steadily weaker and more helpless so that their bodies could be seen to be wasting away. Although their number was not large, they had a disproportionate effect on the others: following upon all the other mishaps of the journey, their deteriorating condition created an atmosphere of despondency and demoralization in which many who had recovered began to ail afresh. Every few days, the maistries would sprinkle vinegar or powdered lime around the edges of the hold, and a few of the patients would be given foul-smelling, gummy potions to drink. Many would spit out the liquid as soon as the guards’ backs were turned, for it was rumoured that the so-called medicine had been concocted from the hoofs and horns of pigs, cows and horses. In any case, the medicines seemed to have no effect at all on the worst-affected migrants, of whom there were about a dozen. The next to die was a thirty-year-old coppersmith from Ballia, a man whose once-robust body had dwindled almost to a skeleton. He had no relatives on board, and only one friend, who was himself too ill to go on deck when the dead man’s body was cast into the water. At that time Deeti was still too weak to sit up or take notice, but by the time the next death occurred, she was well on her way to recovery: in this instance, the deceased was a young Muslim julaha from Pirpainti, who was travelling with two cousins. The dead weaver’s companions were even younger than he, and neither of them was in a state to protest when a squad of silahdars came down to the dabusa and ordered them to heave the body up so that it could be tipped overboard.

Deeti was not especially inclined to intervene, but when it became clear that no one else was going to say anything, what could she do but speak up? Wait! she told the two boys. This isn’t right, what they’re telling you to do. The three silahdars rounded on her angrily: You stay out of this; it’s none of your business. But of course it is, she retorted. He may be dead but he’s still one of us: you can’t just throw him away like the skin of a peeled onion. So what do you expect? said the silahdars. Do you want us to stop and make a big tamasha every time a coolie dies? Just a little izzat; some respect . . . it’s not right to treat us like this. And who’s going to stop us? came the sneering response. You? Not me maybe, said Deeti. But there are others here . . . By this time, many of the girmitiyas had risen to their feet, not with the intention of confronting the silahdars, but mostly out of curiosity. The guards, however, had noted the stir of movement with no little apprehension. The three silahdars began to edge nervously towards the ladder, where one of them paused to ask, in a voice that was suddenly conciliatory: What’s to be done with him, then? Give his relatives some time to talk things over, said Deeti. They can decide what is necessary. We’ll see what the subedar says. With that, the guards went back on deck, and after a half-hour or so, one of them shouted through the hatch to let the migrants know that the subedar had agreed to let the dead man’s kin sort the matter out for themselves. This concession was met with jubilation below, and more than a dozen men offered their help in carrying the body up to the deck. Later, the dead man’s kin sought Deeti out to let her know that the body had been cleaned as prescribed before being consigned to the sea. Everyone agreed that this was a signal victory, and not even the most quarrelsome or envious men could deny that it was largely Deeti’s doing. Kalua alone was less than completely happy about the outcome. Bhyro Singh may have given in this time, he whispered in Deeti’s ear, but he’s not glad about it. He’s been asking who was behind the trouble and whether it was the same woman as before.

Deeti, elated by her success, shrugged this off. What can he do now? she said. We’re at sea – he can’t send us back, can he? * ‘Take in the flying jib!’ – Tán fulána-jíb! Through most of the morning the schooner had been closehauled to the strengthening wind and the masts had been crowded thesam- thes, with a great press of sail. But now, with the sun overhead, the swells in the heaving sea had mounted to a height where the schooner was being continually pooped by surging waves. Zachary, glorying in the power of the vessel, would have kept all her canvas aloft, but was over-ruled by the Captain, who ordered him to reduce sail. ‘Standy by!’ – Sab taiyár! Taking in the flying-jib required only one man to go aloft, usually the quickest and lightest of the trikat-wale. Ascending almost to the truck of the foremast, the lascar would unloose the hinch that secured the sail’s head, while the others waited below, between the bows, in order to wrestle the canvas down and stow it on its boom. By rights it should have fallen to Jodu to go up alone, but Mamdootindal hated to work on the jib-boom, especially when the thirtyfoot spar was ploughing in and out of the water, drenching all those who were clinging to it. Under the pretext of making sure the job was done right, the tindal followed Jodu up the mast and made himself comfortable on the baopar side of the sabar-purwan, seating himself on the yard while Jodu climbed still further up, to wrestle with the hinch. ‘Haul aft the sheet!’ – Dáman tán chikár! Hold on! Mamdoo-tindal’s warning came just as the knot sprung loose. Suddenly, as if seized by panic, the canvas reared up and flung itself against Jodu: it was as if a hunted swan were trying to beat off a pursuer with a frenzied thrashing of its wings. Just in time, Jodu fastened both arms around the mast and clung on, while the men below began to haul on the hanjes, to sheet the sail home. But with the updraughts blowing strong, the sail did not go easily and the canvas kept rearing up, as if to snap at Jodu’s heels.

You see, said Mamdoo-tindal, with no little satisfaction. It’s not as easy as you launders think. Easy? Who’d think that? Slipping down from the masthead, Jodu seated himself astride the sabar yard so that he was sitting with his back to the tindal, with the mast in between. On either side of the schooner, the sea was striped with wide swathes of black shadow, marking the valleys between the swells. Up on the yard, where the ship’s motions were exaggerated by the height of the mast, it was if they were sitting on a palm tree that was swaying from side to side. Jodu tightened his hold, weaving his arms through the sawais, knowing full well that with the water heaving as it was, a fall would mean certain death. With the wind gusting like this, it would take at least an hour to bring the schooner about, and the chances of survival were so slight that the afsars were unlikely even to change course: yet, there was no denying that the danger added a dash of mirch to the masala of the masts. Mamdoo-tindal was of the same mind. He pointed to the outermost tip of the jib-boom, which was known to the lascars as the Shaitán- jíb – the Devil’s-tongue – because so many sailors had lost their lives there. We’re lucky to be here, he said. Just look at those poor buggers down there – the gandus are getting a bath like they’ve never had. Chhi! How it would make Ghaseeti’s kajal run! Glancing down at the schooner’s bows, Jodu saw that the Devil’stongue was plunging in and out of the swells, ducking the lascars who were sitting astride it, and tossing plumes of water over the deck, drenching the migrants who were emerging from the hatch for their midday meal. Under Jodu’s feet, below the footropes, there was an elliptical opening between the billowing trikat and the bara: this gap afforded a view of the waist of the schooner, and looking through it now, Jodu saw two sari-clad figures sitting crouched under the jamna devis. He knew, from the colour of the sari, that one of them was Munia, and he knew, too, from the incline of her veiled head, that she was looking at him. This exchange of glances did not elude Mamdoo-tindal, who curled his elbow around the mast to give Jodu a jab in the ribs. Are you staring at that girl again, you fuckwit of a launder?

Surprised by the severity of his tone, Jodu said: What’s wrong with looking, Mamdoo-ji? Listen to me, boy, said Mamdoo-tindal. Can’t you see? You’re a lascar and she’s a coolie; you’re a Muslim and she’s not. There’s nothing for you in this: nothing but a whipping. Do you understand? Jodu burst into laughter. Arre, Mamdoo-ji, he said, you take things too seriously sometimes. What’s wrong with a couple of jokes and a laugh? Doesn’t it help the time pass? And wasn’t it you said that when Ghaseeti was my age she always got whoever she wanted – no jhula or bunk was safe from her? Tchhi! Turning away from the wind, the tindal ejected a gob of spittle that sailed away across the length of the yard, landing in the sea on the far side of the schooner. Listen, boy, he muttered darkly, under his breath. If you don’t know why this is different, then a dismasting may be just what you need. * Even with fetters on his wrists, Ah Fatt possessed a sureness of hand that was astonishing to Neel. That he should be able to pluck flies out of the air – not swat, but pluck, trapping the insects between the tips of thumb and forefinger – was remarkable enough, but that he should be able to do this in the dark seemed scarcely credible. Often, at night, when Neel was ineffectually flailing his hands at a fly or mosquito, Ah Fatt would catch hold of his arm and tell him to lie still: ‘Shh! Let me listen.’ To ask for silence in the chokey was to expect too much: what with the creaking of the ship’s timbers, the lapping of the water beneath the hull, the tread of the sailors above, and the voices of the migrants on the far side of the bulwark, it was never quiet within its confines. But Ah Fatt seemed to be able to use his senses in such a way as to block out some noises while focusing on others: when the insect made itself heard again, his hand would come shooting out of the darkness to put an end to its drone. It didn’t seem to matter even if the insect settled on Neel’s body: Ah Fatt would pluck it out of the darkness in such a way that Neel would feel nothing but a slight pinch on his skin.

But tonight it was neither the hum of an insect nor Neel’s flailing that made Ah Fatt say: ‘Shh! Listen.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Listen’ Suddenly Ah Fatt’s fetters moved, and their rattle was followed by a frantic, high-pitched squeaking. Then there was a snapping sound, like that of a bone breaking. ‘What was it?’ said Neel. ‘Rat.’ An odour of excrement filled the chokey as Ah Fatt removed the cover of the toilet bucket to drop the dead creature inside. Neel said: ‘I don’t understand how you can catch it with your bare hands.’ ‘Learnt.’ ‘To catch flies and mice?’ Ah Fatt laughed. ‘No. Learnt to listen.’ ‘From whom?’ ‘Teacher.’ Neel, for all his connoisseurship of teachers and tutors, could think of none who would teach this particular skill. ‘What kind of teacher would teach you that?’ ‘Teacher who teach to box.’ Neel was more than ever mystified. ‘A boxing teacher?’ Ah Fatt laughed again. ‘Strange no? Father made to learn.’ ‘But why?’ ‘He want me be like English Man,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Want me learn things that Man must know – rowing, hunting, cricket. But in Guangzhou, there is no hunting and there is no garden for cricket. And rowing is done by servant. So he makes to learn boxing.’ ‘Your father? Did you live with your father then?’ ‘No. Live with Grandmother. In junk.’ The vessel was actually a Canton kitchen-boat, with a wide, flat prow, where dishes could be washed and pigs butchered. Aft of the prow was the galley, with a four-fire oven, sheltered by a bamboo roof; the middle section was sunken, and shaded by an awning, with a low table and benches for customers; the stern was square and high, with a double-decked house perched on it: this was where the

family lived – Ah Fatt, his mother, his grandmother and whichever cousins or other relatives happened to be passing through. The kitchen-boat was a gift from Ah Fatt’s father, and it was a step up in the world for the family: before the boy was born they had lived in a snail-boat that was half the size. Barry would have liked to do still better by his son, the guilt of whose illegitimacy lay heavy on him: he would gladly have bought Chi Mei and her family a house, in the city or in one of the nearby villages – Chuen-pi, for instance, or Whampoa. But this was a Dan family, bred to the river and unwelcome on land. Barry knew this, and raised no objection, although he did make it clear that he would have liked them to acquire a vessel that did him some credit: a big, colourful pleasure- barge, for instance, of the kind that he could have boasted of to his comprador, Chunqua. But Chi Mei and her mother were of thrifty stock, and a dwelling that provided no income was, to them, as useless a thing as a barren sow. Not only did they insist on buying a kitchen-boat, they moored it within sight of the Fanqui-town, so it happened that when Ah Fatt was put to work, helping with customers – which began almost as soon as he learnt to keep his footing on a tilted deck – he could be seen clearly from the windows of the White- hat factory. Kyá-ré? the other Parsis would laugh; fine fellow you are, Barry – letting your bastard grow up like a boat-boy. For your daughters you’re building mansions on Queensway – nothing for this bugger? True he’s not one of us, but there’s something there, no? Can’t just turn your back on him . . . This was unjust, for it was patent for all to see, Parsis and others alike, that Barry was an indulgent and ambitious father, who had every intention of providing his only son with the wherewithal to set himself up as a gentleman of good standing: the boy was to be erudite, active and urbane, as handy with rod and gun as with book and pen; a Man who spouted Manliness like a whale exhales spray. If schools refused to accept the illegitimate son of a boatwoman, then he would hire special tutors, to teach him reading and penmanship, in Chinese and English – that way, he could always make a career for himself as a linkister, translating between the Fanquis and their hosts. There were many such in Canton, but most

were utterly incompetent; the boy could easily learn to outdo them all and might even make a name for himself. To find tutors who were willing to teach in a Dan kitchen-boat was no easy matter, but through Chunqua’s good offices, some were found. Ah Fatt took readily to his lessons and every year when his father returned to Canton for the season, the records of his progress grew longer and longer, the calligraphy ever more stylish. Every year, Barry would bring extravagant gifts from Bombay, to thank his comprador for keeping an eye on the progress of the boy’s education; every year Chunqua in turn would reciprocate with a present of his own, usually a book for the boy. In Ah Fatt’s thirteenth year, the present was a fine edition of that famous and beloved tale, Journey to the West. Barry was much enthused when the name was translated for him: ‘It’ll do him good to read about Europe and America. Some day I will send him on a visit.’ Not without some embarrassment, Chunqua explained that the West in question was somewhat nearer at hand; in fact it was intended to be none other than Mr Moddie’s very own homeland – Hindusthan, or Jambudvipa as it was called in the old books. ‘Oh?’ Although no longer so enthusiastic, Barry gave the boy his present anyway, little knowing that he would soon regret this offhand decision. Later, he came to be convinced that it was this book that was responsible for the fancies that entered Ah Fatt’s head: ‘Want to go West . . .’ Every time the boy saw him, he would plead to visit his father’s homeland. But this was the one indulgence Barry could not grant: to think of letting the boy sail to Bombay on one of his father-inlaw’s ships; to imagine him walking down the gangplank, into a crowd of waiting relatives; to conceive of presenting his mother-inlaw, his wife, his daughters, with fleshly evidence of his other life, in Canton, which they knew of only as a provenance for finely embroidered silks, pretty fans and torrents of silver – none of these notions could be entertained for more than a moment; why, it would be like unloosing an army of termites on the parqueted floors of his Churchgate mansion. The other Parsis in Canton might know about the boy, but he knew he could trust them to be discreet back home: after all, he,

Barry, was not the only one to lapse from bachelordom during these long months of exile. And even if a whisper or two were to reach his hometown, he knew people would ignore them so long as the evidence was kept safely hidden from view. If, on the other hand, he were to bring the boy back, for people to see with their own eyes, then a great flame of scandal would erupt from the doors of the fire- temple, to light a conflagration that would ultimately consume his lucrative living. No, Freddy, listen to me, he said to Ah Fatt. This ‘West’ you’ve got in your head is just something that was made up in a silly old book. Later, when you’re grown up, I’ll send you to the real West – to France or America or England, some place where people are civilized. When you get there you’ll be able to set yourself up as a prince or a foxhunting man. But don’t think of Hindusthan; forget about it. It’s the one place that’s not good for you. ‘And he was right,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Was not good for me.’ ‘Why? What did you do?’ ‘Robbery. Did robbery.’ ‘When? Where?’ Ah Fatt rolled away, burying his face. ‘Nother time,’ he said, in a muffled voice. ‘Not now.’ * The turbulence of the open sea had a calamitous effect on Baboo Nob Kissin’s processes of digestion and many days passed before he was able to make his way from the midships-cabin to the main deck. But when at last he stepped into the open air and felt the moisture of the sea on his face, he understood that all those days of dizziness, diarrhoea and vomiting were the necessary period of suffering that precedes a moment of illumination: for he had only to look at the spindrift that was flying off the schooner’s bows to know that the Ibis was not a ship like any other; in her inward reality she was a vehicle of transformation, travelling through the mists of illusion towards the elusive, ever-receding landfall that was Truth. Nowhere was this transformation more evident than in himself, for the presence of Taramony was so palpable within him now that his outer body felt increasingly like the spent wrappings of a cocoon,